Óengus of Tallaght

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Félire Óengusso
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For the 10th-century poet who names himself Óengus céile Dé, see Saltair na Rann.

Saint

Óengus of Tallaght
Bornunknown
Clonenagh, Spahill, County Laois, Ireland
Diedpossibly (824-03-11)11 March 824
Venerated in
Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church
Feast11 March

Óengus mac Óengobann, better known as Saint Óengus of Tallaght or Óengus the

Culdee,[1] was an Irish bishop, reformer and writer, who flourished in the first quarter of the 9th century and is held to be the author of the Félire Óengusso ("Martyrology of Óengus") and possibly the Martyrology of Tallaght
.

Little of Óengus's life and career is reliably attested. The most important sources include internal evidence from the Félire, a later Middle Irish preface to that work, a biographic poem beginning Aíbind suide sund amne ("Delightful to sit here thus") and the entry for his feast-day inserted into the Martyrology of Tallaght.

Background

Óengus was known as a son of Óengoba and grandson of Oíblén,

County Laois, Ireland), not far from the present town of Mountrath, and brought up at the monastic school founded there by Fintan of Clonenagh, where also his body was buried. The claim may be spurious since the Félire itself accords no such importance to the monastic foundation or its patron saint Fintan.[3]

Óengus describes himself as a

cleric in the Félire, using the more humble appellation of "pauper" (pauperán and deidblén in Old Irish).[3] He was an important member of the community founded by Máel Ruain at Tallaght (now in South Dublin), in the borderlands of Leinster. Máel Ruain is described as his mentor (aite, also "foster father"). Óengus is first described as a bishop in a list of saints inserted into the Martyrology of Tallaght.[3]

Writings

Martyrology of Oengus
, presenting the entries for 1 and 2 January in the form of quatrains of four six-syllabic lines for each day.

Félire Óengusso

The literary effort most commonly attributed to Óengus is the

Leabhar Breac
of the early 15th century.

The martyrology proper consists of 365 quatrains, one for each day of the year, and is framed between a lengthy prologue and epilogue. Later scribes added a prose preface, including material on Óengus, and accompanied the text with abundant glosses and scholia. Óengus's principal source was the

Eusebius" and "Ireland's host of books."[4]

Dating the calendar

The precise date of the original composition has proved difficult to ascertain. The usual method of determining a

terminus ante quem is a different game. In view of the selective nature of the Félire, arguments from silence have little to recommend it, at least in individual cases.[5] What would have been instructive, the year of Óengus's death, is unknown, but his education by Máel Ruain (d. 792) must at least mean that he did not outlive the 9th century.[6]

The one thing that is usually accepted is that it was written no earlier than 797, when one of the rulers described in the prologue as having deceased,

Donnchad mac Domnaill, king of Tara, died.[7] Rudolf Thurneysen postulated a date before 808 on grounds that the reference to the death of Bran Ardchenn mac Muiredaig (d. probably 795), king of Leinster, should be attributed to political sympathies in the reign of his successor Fínsnechta mac Cellaig (d. 808).[8]

Ó Riain, however, has rejected the traditional date (797 x 808) in favour of a later range, between 828 and 833, while more recently, Dumville has cast doubt on Ó Riain's conclusions and dating methods. First, Ó Riain argues that such sympathies as Thurneysen refers to are pertinent only to the next kings in the royal line,

tuatha or mórthuatha. The inclusion of these kings in the prologue, therefore, offers no good reason to move up the terminus ante quem.[10] Second, Ó Riain sees reason to identify the saints Airerán (11 August), Modímóc (10 December) and Flann (14 January) with Airfhinnán (d. 803), abbot of Tallaght, Dímmán of Araid (d. 811) and Flann mac Fairchellaig (d. 825), abbot of Lismore. Dumville, however, points out several weaknesses and concludes with Stokes "that no saint or other person who certainly died in the ninth century is mentioned."[11] Third, having identified a number of saints in the Martyrology of Tallaght, the primary model for the Félire, he proposes obits extending to that of Teimnén or Temnán of Linn Duachaill, who died in 828.[12] In Dumville's view, the evidence is ambiguous, since the relationship of the extant copies of the Martyrology of Tallaght to the lost original which served as the source for the Félire is yet unclear.[13] Liam Breatnach has also supported Thurneysen's date.[14]

Centres of worldly and spiritual power

Something of Óengus' view on secular politics appears to come through in his prologue to the Félire. In several stanzas, the deserted sites of

T.M. Charles-Edwards, Óengus was responding to the military domination of overlords of his day, commenting that worldly glory is transient, while spiritual power is enduring. To similar effect, Óengus also holds up the example of Máel Ruain, who continues to offer support and comfort after his death, against that of the contemporary warrior-kings Donnchadh and Bran Ardchenn, whose strong exercise of power meant no such thing after theirs.[15][16]

Martyrology of Tallaght

It has been suggested that Óengus was actively involved in the compilation if not the composition of the augmented Martyrology of Tallaght. This was a work of Northumbrian provenance, probably from Lindisfarne, which first passed through Iona and Bangor, where Irish scribes began to make some additions. The manuscript (now lost) finally arrived in Tallaght, where it received the majority of its Irish additions.[3] It was written by someone of Óengus's learning and literary skill at Tallaght and there are strong indications that this was Óengus himself: first of all, the sources named by Óengus in the epilogue to the Félire (see above) would make more sense if these were the materials used for the Martyrology of Tallaght; second, a number of saints whom the same epilogue claims to have included are found in the Martyrology of Tallaght, but not in the actual Félire.[3]

Death

According to the Martyrology of Tallaght, Óengus's feast day, and hence the date of his death, is 11 March. The poem beginning Aíbind suide sund amne claims that he died on a Friday in Dísert Bethech ("The Birchen Hermitage").[17] Together, these have produced a range of possible dates such as 819, 824 and 830, but pending the dates of the martyrologies, no conclusive answer can be offered.[18] His metrical Life tells that he was buried in his birthplace Clonenagh.[19]

Reputation

Becoming a

Dísert Óengusa near to Croom, c. AD 780. Two of the reformed communities of Tallaght, monasteries in County Limerick and County Laois founded in Óengus's lifetime, are known as Dísert Óengusa ("Óengus's Hermitage").[3]

His earliest biographer in the ninth century

monastery of Tallaght, near Dublin, then governed by Máel Ruain. He entered as a lay brother
, concealing his identity, but Máel Ruain soon discovered him and collaborated with him on the Martyrology of Tallaght.

Notes

  1. ^ This nickname was first assigned to him, on no apparent authority, by John Colgan in the 17th century.
  2. ^ Martyrology of Tallaght, p. 22. (Oengusa episcopi huí Oíbleáin); however, Aíbind suide sund amne, stanza 2, has mac Oíblén.
  3. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/40885. Retrieved 27 January 2009. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  4. ^ Félire Óengusso, lines 137–41. Ó Riain, "Óengus of Tallaght." ODNB.
  5. ^ Dumville, "Félire Óengusso." 26, 36.
  6. ^ Dumville, "Félire Óengusso." 28.
  7. ^ Donnchad dric ruad rogdae "Donnchad the wrathful, ruddy, chosen", Félire Óengusso 221; Dumville, "Félire Óengusso." p. 25.
  8. ^ Thurneysen, "Die Abfassung des Félire von Oengus."
  9. ^ Ó Riain, "The Tallaght martyrologies redated." pp. 37–8.
  10. ^ Dumville, "Félire Óengusso." 28-9.
  11. ^ Dumville, "Félire Óengusso." pp. 26, 29–30.
  12. ^ Ó Riain, "The Tallaght martyrologies redated." 26 ff.
  13. ^ Dumville, "Félire Óengusso." 37-8, 46.
  14. ^ Breatnach, "Poets and Poetry" in McCone and Simms (eds), Progress in medieval Irish studies (Maynooth, 1996, pp. 65-77.
  15. ^ a b Félire Óengusso, ed. Stokes, p. 24.
  16. ^ Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland. 469-70.
  17. ^ Aíbind suide sund amne, stanza 3.
  18. ^ Dumville, "Félire Óengusso", p. 27.
  19. ^ Aíbind suide sund amne, stanza 4.
  20. ^ a b "St. Aengus (the Culdee)". Catholic Encyclopedia.

References

Primary sources

Secondary sources

  • Carney, James. "Language and Literature to 1169." In A New History of Ireland. Prehistoric and early Ireland, ed. Dáibhí Ó Cróinín. Oxford, 2005. 451–510.
  • Charles-Edwards, T.M. Early Christian Ireland. Cambridge, 2000.
  • Dumville, David N. "Félire Óengusso. Problems of dating a monument of Old Irish." Éigse 33 (2002): 19–34.
  • Ó Riain, Pádraig. "Óengus of Tallaght (fl. c.830)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed 27 Jan 2009.
  • Ó Riain, Pádraig. "The Tallaght martyrologies redated."
    Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies
     20 (1990): 21–38.
  • Thurneysen, Rudolf. "Die Abfassung des Félire von Oengus."
    ZCP
    6 (1908): 6–8.

Further reading

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "St. Aengus (the Culdee)". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

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